It seems like everything is always going up in price. Is that because of corporate monopolies or something? Do costs of living get higher as a society becomes more industrialized/advanced?
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It would be important to understand that “living” in the sense of this measure is subjective and changes over time.
Of course, without thinking, we tend to assume that “living” is what we encounter daily and is somewhat fixed. But this is obviously not true.
Just 30 years ago, smart phones did not exist. The internet was a playground for small group of relatively tech savvy people. Mobile phones were pretty much a “rich person” thing. Laptop computers weighed 5kgs and cost a few thousand US dollars each. You watched movies in theaters or VHS tapes. Music came from radios or CDs.
Go back another 20 years, and VHS, CD, mobile phones and the internet did not even exist. Computers were mostly owned by government or businesses. Going on international trips and tours were luxuries. In the US, TV would be 3 channels of broadcast programs.
As economies develop and technology improves, more and more of these things become cheap enough to be incorporated into our expectations of “living” and therefore the “cost of living” tends to increase. We expect a higher baseline and the people/technology who provide those expectations have to be paid.
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